anyone bought from Liuyang Pyro-Fittings Co. Ltd.? are they serious?

hello

i'm interested getting in some parts from pyro-fittings.com but their sales representative ("rebecca") says they do not accept paypal (i asked them to send me an invoice via paypal), they only accept direct bank transfers to some guy's personal account in china or western union transfers (made to the same guy's name/gov't id number).

this doesn't sound too safe for me, is wu/bank transfer the norm when dealing with suppliers from the Liuyang area?

It is common practice in that part of the world to only accpet bank transfers, so yes, I'd say they are serious. No, it is terribly safe. Unless you do come across someone who has dealt with this company before that can vouch for them, I would start small, or talk to them about putting the money in escrow. Let us know how it goes, I want some of those firing systems.

Asking a true pyro how much a show cost to put on is like asking an artist how much a painting costed to paint... It's a ridiculous and stupid question.

I have used the bank transfer method in the past (before many of the companies over there started using paypal and escrow thru alibaba.com) and things went fine, BUT I was worried to death until the product finally arrived. These days there are just too many companies willing to use paypal or escrow to bother dealing with the ones who refuse to. Check out alibaba.com for whatever it is they sell which you are interested in and I'd bet you'll find another company willing to sell you the same thing but under better terms. Almost all of those companies are trading companies anyway, not manufacturers, and all sell the same products for the most part.

thank you for clearing it up about this being a common way to pay over there.

for now i'm only ordering inert/inactive parts from them and they can ship it via DHL airmail. I think i'll risk it and see how it goes since this is a very small order, only $120 (and that includes the DHL shipping&tracking fee)

P.S. the name of the person receiving the money is the same as that appearing on the whois record in their domain registration, so i think they might be safe. I'll keep posting updates about how the order goes.

I have used the bank transfer method in the past (before many of the companies over there started using paypal and escrow thru alibaba.com) and things went fine, BUT I was worried to death until the product finally arrived. These days there are just too many companies willing to use paypal or escrow to bother dealing with the ones who refuse to. Check out alibaba.com for whatever it is they sell which you are interested in and I'd bet you'll find another company willing to sell you the same thing but under better terms. Almost all of those companies are trading companies anyway, not manufacturers, and all sell the same products for the most part.

Send the payment by bank transfer or Western Union, it is common way in China. And as your words, the amount is not big, so i think you do not worry about that. Maybe you will get a surprise from that company, lol!

thank you to all that reassured me.
I also found someone else in my area that had bought from them in the past and had me assured that they were correct so i changed my order a bit, i paid them $260 va WU on september 12th, they have confirmed receiving the payment yesterday sept 16th and they promised to ship this week-end via dhl. I suspect it's more likely that they will ship on Monday since i don't think dhl accepts new packages on week-ends.

Update: (november 15th)
the package arrived safely on october 3rd, the firing systems work ok so far, after more than a month of use (once or twice a week)DHL tracking, AWB=7981150424

Last edited by Rassilon; November 15th, 2011 at 10:17 AM.
Reason: added a bit more info